The use of hybrid and fully electric powered vehicles means a bank of batteries carrying very high voltages is required. In the event of a vehicle crash, the electrical current flowing from the batteries can become a serious hazard particularly as the current flows can be shorted to electrify a vehicle chassis with very high voltage. This creates a hazard for the occupants as well as emergency personnel responding to the accident. The possibility of electrocution or of the combustion of flammable material is an extreme risk. Ideally, the risk can be minimized if the flow of electricity can be disrupted, preferably near the source or in the case of electric vehicles, near the batteries.
A manual off switch is unreliable for many reasons, because the driver may be incapacitated and emergency personnel may not be able to safely access such a switch.
An object of the present invention is to have the disruption of high voltage electrical currents to occur automatically in the event of a crash and to do so in a very low cost and reliable way to protect the vehicle, its occupants and those emergency personnel responding to the accident.
The disconnection of the electrical currents has to happen in a really short time <2 ms, to avoid any damage of the connected electric system, for instance the onboard electronics of the vehicle. This invention simultaneously extinguishes the electrical arcs caused by a gas flow immediately after cutting the electrical connection while suppressing the heat generated by using the filters to cool and a piston to squeeze the electrical arcs between piston and cylinder.
In case of very high currents and voltages a higher volume of very hot and ionized gas can be produced during the disconnection. If the filtering volume is too small those hot gases can get out of the device, and the risk for an external re-ignition of the electric arc can increase.
Besides the functional requirements major design goals for a high voltage electric line cutter are low volume and low weight. As a consequence, the embedded filter volumes are minimized, they can be too small for very high currents and voltages with very hot and highly ionized gas. In such a case the hot gas streams have to be separated and cooled in order to avoid re-ignition. For this purpose, a further very important objective of the present invention is to modify and ingeniously mount the device inside an electric fuse box or junction box configured to safely receive and expel most debris and gases any electrical discharges at the fuse box or junction box.